Paley’s Other Place

Imperial is plenty ambitious, but not quite ready to rule.

Vitaly Paley makes a mean stack of flapjacks. Although he
has operated Paley’s Place in the Alphabet District since 1995, we’re
only now learning about his pancake prowess thanks to the breakfast menu
at Imperial, the iconic local chef’s new downtown restaurant.

Taking over the
ground floor in the stylish Hotel Lucia, Imperial stands to profit
handsomely from a captive breakfast audience. And, as one bartender put
it, “If you nail breakfast, you have a good chance of seeing them again
at dinner.” So Paley’s team—the kitchen is the domain of protégé Ben
Bettinger, formerly of Beaker & Flask, but everything down to the
paper napkin bands is stamped with Paley’s name—crafted a menu of
omelettes, granola and French toast.

Those pancakes—a trio
of airy, fried buttermilk batter ($9) topped with a sprinkle of sugar
and slices of compressed apples—were the highlight of our breakfast. On
the other hand, the coddled eggs ($11) needed to be more carefully
coddled. The yolks in our order had cooked through, turning into flaky
yellow orbs that floated uselessly next to melted globs of goat cheese
atop spicy marinara. Chances are the ramekin simply sat unserved too
long. The cold, crunchy fry bread round that accompanied them also
suggests such a fate. “This,” my dining companion pointed out, “never
happens at Tasty n Sons.”

But, hey, it’s just breakfast at a hotel restaurant, right? Except that two dinners at Imperial yielded a similar mix.

The room itself is
beautiful, a cocoon of warm French oak with high ceilings and padded
chairs. To emphasize Imperial’s theme—the menu tracks the evolution of
Oregon food, and Paley actually used the local historical society for
research—most entrees arrive on a log slab. A wood-fired grill faces
out, bathing diners with campfire warmth felt through the eyes, if not
on the skin.Tag-team service is gracious if also a little flighty.

Many
dishes at Imperial outshined what I had on a recent visit to Paley’s
Place, one of Portland’s best-known restaurants. I could happily eat the
superb roasted poblano pepper ($18) stuffed with rice pilaf, cubed
acorn squash, chestnuts, shallots and rich walnut cream every day of
autumn. Likewise for a side of warm, richly seasoned rainbow chard
topped with melted Parmesan and peppered with smoked raisins and bits of
sweet pork. Two seasonal salads impressed: one made with lightly oiled
greens and bittersweet pickled blueberries that comes with thick
crostini slathered with pleasantly salty chicken liver, the other a
generous portion of kale with sweet and toasty sunflower seed brittle
and creamy goat cheese dressing. And for dessert, there’s a robust and
mildly sweet huckleberry- and ice cream-topped skillet cake.

But other dishes,
like the deep-fried rabbit entree ($25), would be better left back on
the Conestoga wagon. Essentially country-fried rabbit, there’s about as
much meat as you’ll get on two full chicken wings. The rabbit itself was
flavorful if a little tough, but it’s a greasy chore to eat. Even with a
delicious fried corn cake and the little pot of local honey and an
eyedropper of hot sauce, I couldn’t help but feel like Granny Clampett
had fixed this up to finish off a little extra batter. I was also
disappointed with a pair of cloyingly sweet duck meatballs ($12) and a
side of baked beans ($6) that had great texture but was bathed in
bottle-quality barbecue sauce.

Simple foods like
baked beans—or, for that matter, pancakes—are, of course, the sort of
yeoman’s work that looks easier than it is. There’s no doubt Paley’s
team has the money and talent to make Imperial consistently great, but
it’s going to take a little more coddling.